


Pink, like the peonies

by Glowcloudwasright



Category: Lumberjanes
Genre: April's mom, Gen, Its the first mother's day since April's mom passed away, Mention of Death, Mother's Day, POV Jo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24128350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glowcloudwasright/pseuds/Glowcloudwasright
Summary: This is the first Mother's Day since April's mom passed away and it's up to Jo and April to keep some traditions and memories alive.
Relationships: April & Jo (Lumberjanes)
Kudos: 7





	Pink, like the peonies

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea from days ago so I needed to put it into words. Hope you like it!

Jo never really celebrated mother’s day the usual way. Having two dads, there wasn’t really a mother to congratulate on her day, and even if they did call Jo's grandma to congratulate her, they rarely visited since she lived so far away. Mother's day would be like any other day for her really, except she did have a very special mother figure to congratulate every year.

Jo would wake up early on the 10th every year, have breakfast with her dads, call her grandmother and bike down the street to bring flowers to April's mom; sometimes her dads would come along too, but the tradition remained with a few basic points. First of all, Jo would bring peonies, because those were April's mom's favorites. Second, she and April would present a card made by both of them, usually with lots of glitter. And third, they would all enjoy Uncle Alan's cinnamon pancakes as a late brunch treat.

Of course Jo didn't have a mom of her own, but April's mom felt like family to her, she had always been there for her and April, their parents had always been friends, it was even hard to try and think about a holiday or a birthday were April's family wasn't there; and that made Jo so happy. She felt so lucky to have such a friendship with April and it made her so happy to have such a woman as April's mom in her life.

But this year, Jo didn't feel so happy or lucky. This was the first Mother's day since April's mom had passed away.

It had already been a couple of months, but from the moment Jo woke up she could tell this day was different. She didn’t feel the static in the air or the rush to go running to deliver peonies to April's house. Any other year, Jo could only describe the day as "pink", oddly as that sounds, but that’s what April always said about that day.

"Today feels... Pink!"  
"Pink, April?"  
"Yeah! Like the peonies. Do you feel it?"  
"I feel like you've finally lost it."  
"Say whatever you want, but today is pink!"

Jo wouldn’t admit it because how can you logically describe a day as "pink"? But she felt it, every year. This year, however, didn't feel pink. If Jo had to assign a color to it, it would probably be gray, and even the sky outside her window seemed to agree.

Jo came down the stairs slowly, the slowest she had ever climbed down the stairs in a while and sat down at the breakfast table with her dads, who seemed gray too.

"Morning, dads." Jo said, taking her seat at the table.

"Good morning, sweetie."

"Morning, sunshine." Said her dad Leo, placing a glass of orange juice in front of her.

"Say, we're going over to your Uncle Alan's later. To keep him company. Want to come along?"

"I'm sure April would be happy to see you."

The weird feeling in Jo's stomach stopped for a little while.

"Yeah, I'd like that." Said Jo, with a soft smile.

"Would you like eggs?"

"I'm not really hungry, dad. Thanks."

"Jo, you know breakfast is the most important-"

"That’s okay, sweetie." Leo chimed back in. "Today isn’t really a sunny side up kind of day, is it?"

Both of her dads exchanged a sad look of sad understanding, as Jo sipped on her orange juice quietly.

The drive over wasn’t usually more than 5 minutes, but sitting there in the back of her dad's car, watching the houses they passed by, felt like an eternity.

The ringing of the doorbell only worsened Jo's stomach ache and she could feel her palms sweating. Uncle Alan then opened the door; with April right behind him, greeting them almost as happy as usual. “Almost” being the key word.

The absence of the smell of Uncle Alan's cinnamon pancakes didn´t surprise Jo, but it did make her feel sad.

"I know. I feel weird without the cinnamon smell too." Said April, giving her a half smile.

April usually did that, reading Jo's mind. Jo explained it as her probably reading her body language after years of friendship, but it was way cooler to just say April could read her mind.

They sat down on April's back porch while the adults had coffee in the kitchen, their usual arrangement.

Jo wasn’t usually short for words, but right now she couldn’t muster to speak more than a few syllables, fearing her stomach would fail her at any point and a million butterflies would fly out of her mouth or that she would recreate that one (scientifically inaccurate) scene from Alien, but she really wanted to ask April how she was, how she was feeling. If Jo herself felt so sad, so gray, how could April possibly be feeling?

"I'm fine, don’t worry." Said her friend, finally.

"You really gotta stop reading my mind." Said Jo back, with a small grin.

April simply laughed. "Where’s the fun in that?"

April was absorbed in her thoughts now, staring at the old swing set in her yard.

"Let’s go to the swings." Said Jo, not looking away from the old playground either.

"Now who’s reading minds?" Answered April, standing up and racing her friend to the old set.

They sat there, swinging lightly while the chains screeched with each movement.

"I think we haven’t sit here in years." Commented April.

"Yeah, it was kinda boring after the time we attached those rockets to the swing and you flew over the fence."

"My illustrious cosmonaut career was born that day." April clenched her fist dramatically.

"And was also over after our parents grounded us for playing with rockets." Both girls were now laughing, thinking about Jo's dads, questioning if they should congratulate their daughter for such accurate parabolic calculations or ground her for playing with explosives.

They settled on the grounding, as did April's parents.

"She was so mad that day, but... She read me that story about Valentina Tereshkova that night..." April said softly, looking at the gravel underneath them.

"I remember that one..." Jo said, also looking down. "You were so mad you weren’t going to be the first woman in space after all." Jo pushed April's shoulder lightly, who laughed in exchange.

"I was robbed." April said back.

The silence between the two girls resumed, until April spoke up.

"You know, Jo. We’re visiting her later in the afternoon. If you’d be comfortable with coming along." April said, her eyes still fixed on the ground. "I could... I could use a friend there..."

"Of course." Jo said, now looking at her friend and placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, maybe we could bring her some peonies... It's tradition, after all." Jo said, as a small tear rolled down April's cheek.

"Yeah..." April said, wiping said tear. "That would very really nice."

They talked some more after April changed the subject, until Jo's dads called back for the girls. They both agreed to let Jo go with them to visit April's mom's grave, if Alan was okay with that; he, of course, was okay with that. After a quick run back to her house to change shirts for something a little more appropriate for the occasion and grabbing a few peonies from her garden, Jo was dropped off back at April's as her dad's went on to run some errands.

She and April placed the flowers in water, admiring their work like they had just grown the flowers themselves in a few seconds.

"Thank you, Jo. These are lovely." said April's dad, ruffling Jo's hair slightly.

They went upstairs to April's room, and while April changed clothes inside her closet, Jo admired April's desk, a true example of order within chaos. It had sprawled work sheets from school, the most recent Mermaid Lemonade Stand issue, various scrapbook materials, every type of gel pen imaginable, amongst other things. Between the mess, however, Jo could recognize a pattern and she knew that if she were to move anything, April would know.

Like she said, order inside chaos.

At the back of the desk, April's collection of glitter caught her attention, sitting there unused, unlike past years.

"Hey, Ape." Called Jo. "Remember when we accidentally spilled glitter in your dad's seals?"

April's laughter filled the room, as she clutched her stomach at the memory.

"How could I forget? His clients had glittery forms and contracts to fill out for months."

Both of the girls laughed, remembering the various papers covered with hints of rainbow glitter. April was now standing next to Jo, who was sitting at April’s desk, admiring the glitter.

"Hey, Jo?"

"Mhm?"

"I think I’d like to bring something to my mom besides the peonies. It’s also part of the tradition after all." Said April.

"Of course." answered Jo, wrapping her arm around April’s shoulders.

Soon both girls were hard at work, cutting up construction paper and gluing glitter to everything they could find.

"How do you not get glitter stuck under your nails?!" asked an exasperated Jo, scrapping pink glitter from her hands.

"You have a lot to learn, little grass hopper." Answered April, spinning her glue gun like a pistol.

As answer, Jo simply threw a ball of construction paper at her friend.

"Hey!"

After a short time and a few paper projectiles later, the card was done. April and Jo held it in their hands, staring at every little detail with close attention.

"I think it's out best one yet." Said Jo, proudly.

"You always say that. But yeah, I think it is." April smiled. "We still have to sign it!"

Grabbing one of April's gel pens each, they signed the back of the card. April with her flawless loopsy cursive and her characteristic heart dotted i and Jo with her clean, sharp molded type letter.

"She would have loved this one..." April said finally, admiring their work once more.

"I'm sure she would’ve, Ape."

The card was now finished, so the girls put anything away, following April's "system" of organization and sharing some more laughs.

Jo hadn't notice until now, but the feeling in her stomach had soon faded away and was replaced by a light soreness on her muscles from laughing too hard.

They were now ready to go and on their way in April's dad's car when they noticed how the sun was now setting and the light orange and pinks from the sky filtered through the car window. An array of beautiful colors worthy of a summer evening, except it was the middle of May.

They both stared outside the window contemplating the spectacle of colors and how it merged with the trees they passed along the way.

"You know how today feels like?" Asked April, looking back at Jo.

"Pink?" The girl answered back.

"Yeah... It really is pink." 


End file.
